Basil seedlings are not people, puppies, or kitties. This is a totally renewable resource. . If you try to separate them and their roots are entangled....you are likely to damage them all. If they can be separated easily, you simply make a decision about how many to keep and how many to dispose of or give away. Composting is not a waste, it's a contribution. Next time, you'll plan better and won't sow so many. I would only use one sturdy seedling per cell.

Basil will definitely die if left outside in the winter. It even dies outside in winter here in California. Parsley, I'm not so sure about. Basil is considered an annual, so you might have to plan on planting some more in the spring. I've had parsley last 2 years before it got too woody and had to be replaced. Here is a link that might be useful: What's Growing On?

Hi there! I'm a first-time herb grower and have a question about my sweet basil plant. I'm growing it inside by my kitchen window (plenty of sunshine!) in a container. It grew a lot really quickly in the past few months up to about a foot tall. I decided to cut a bit off and give it to a friend so she could have some and so I cut about halfway down one of the two main stems to give her a fairly large portion. This was about a month ago and that cut portion has not produced any more growth. It actually looks like it's dying (the stem near the cut turned hard and brown). The rest of the plant is healthy and I water it regularly, but I'm afraid to cut anything more off of it because this section hasn't grown back. Did I cut the wrong area? Should I have just picked off the leaves instead of cutting the stem? I don't want to kill this plant. I really want to use it. Any insight you all may have will help. Thanks!

It does tend to be a high effort, modest result thing, but if you're solarizing/smothering over the winter and into spring, that's going to be far more effective. Solarizing in September is no great shakes, even in CO, but smothering? Yeah, that works. Half the time, we get people who want to solarize for 2 weeks in May and think that'll do it. Er, no. That's called "dormancy" to most lawns and most weeds think of it as a tropical vacation. :-) Will this be 100% effective? No. Will you need to pull out some chemicals next spring? Probably, although you can certainly hand-weed. Will it be the amount you'd need to use if you didn't do this? Absolutely not, you'll definitely be ahead of the game in terms of using far less than otherwise. So I'm going to say go for it and that it's a win-win in terms of chemical savings and avoiding overmuch biting of bullets, which nobody likes. If you're having the property box-bladed next spring to prep for the sod, you may be far enough along that you don't even need to use the chems at all. Check with your contractor, depending on the prep that needs to be done. If you're doing it yourself, remember that sod needs really good soil contact and to be moist to damp (not wet, drenched, soaked, puddled, dry, strawlike, or parched) for the first two weeks, then gently backed off as it can handle it. You may already know that, but just in case, and pardon if I'm repeating what you already know. It's just that CO tends to go rather low humidity and dry and I remember seeing a lot of spring sod Go Wrong, so I'd rather avoid a posting next June other than, "Look at my great sod!"